Pacific Northwest Forum Goes Digital

It just became a whole lot easier to immerse yourself in the stories and histories of the region’s past, thanks to the digitization of a legacy publication from Eastern Washington University, The Pacific Northwest Forum. 

University archivist, Steven Bingo is heading up the project. He and his student assistant have sifted through 54 of the physical journal issues to bring them to the public in a digital, accessible online format. 

“The project is important mainly because there’s a lot of history in these articles that you can’t find published anywhere else,” says Steven Bingo, archivist at EWU Libraries. 

The Pacific Northwest Forum sprung from a regional research initiative inspired by the 200th birthday of the United States. “What they found when they were researching that history, is that there’s a lot more local history that needs to be published,” says Bingo. “The forum was then created to publish articles on little-known stories about the region’s past.”

The Pacific Northwest Forum was published by EWU in two runs: the first from 1976 -1986, the second from 1988 -1997. The journal’s editor was J. William T. Youngs, Jr., a professor of history who still serves on Eastern’s faculty. From its beginnings, Youngs developed content for the journal with the help of his students. 

“The Forum existed thanks to the combined effort of students and faculty,” says Bingo. “Students published articles in the forum while it ran, specifically history majors.”

 

And nearly fifty years after its first publication, a history student is helping bring these stories to light.                   

Lauren Terry, a junior history major, says her contributions began by completing the first of three steps in the digitization procedures — indexing the physical journals. “This process involved skimming the articles then inputting the volume information, article titles and keywords into a spreadsheet,” says Terry. “This stage of the project was my favorite. I was able to learn a plethora of PNW history that I would have never approached otherwise.”

One interesting fact, she says, is that during the Great Depression, a city block in Cheney sold for $39. In 2025 dollars, that equates to roughly $737. “I can’t even rent a studio apartment for that amount in Cheney,” says Terry. 

Among the local lore Bingo and Terry uncovered was a series called, Lumberjack Legends. In the articles, which spanned several issues, a local lumberjack told stories about his life and livelihood. 

“The stories provide a lot of local color that might not be considered serious history, but can explain a lot about what it was like to live in certain places and times in the inland northwest,” says Bingo. 

Beyond local tales, pieces of history important to American cultural movements are embedded in the issues. “In the late 1970s, there was an article published about an African American man named Emmett Hercules Holmes, who was a sort of pioneer,” says Bingo. “At the time, there was an amusement park in Spokane that was segregated. He basically filed a suit for nonservice at one of the restaurants there.”

While he was unsuccessful in that suit, his story remains an important part of the region’s black history. 

“You don’t see a published book about Spokane Black history until the 1980s,” Bingo adds. “There are many topics included in these journals that don’t have much coverage otherwise.”

The first part of the digitization process made the journals keyword searchable. That way, Bingo says, students and researchers wouldn’t have to look through individual issues to find topics they’re interested in. 

After those keywords were recorded, the second step was to capture images of the journal pages to be converted into PDF files. Using a suspended camera, Bingo and Terry took images and then adjusted them to make sure the page placement was accurate. They also compiled photos from each issue, then turned them into a singular PDF to make the files more accessible to viewers. 

“If someone has a citation, they can figure out exactly where it will be in the digital copy because the pages will match up,” says Bingo. “These files are exact replications of the physical copies.”

And the final step in the process included standardizing the keywords in a format used in libraries across the U.S. Afterward, all the issues were uploaded onto Eastern’s Digital Commons repository for public access.

“I feel incredibly lucky to have had this digitization opportunity. Not only have I learned more about our region’s history, but also about the ways in which historians and archivists preserve it as well. I aim to continue exploring the history field during my time here at EWU and use my involvement with the Pacific Northwest Forum to gain more valuable experience,” says Terry.

“The journal is an example of faculty-student collaboration upon which Eastern prides itself,” says Bingo. 

To access the digital journals, visit the EWU Digital Commons’ Pacific Northwest Forum site.

Story written by Avery Knochel.